'It's Africa's turn!' The narratives and legitimations surrounding the Moroccan and South African bids for the 2006 and 2010 FIFA finals

Mega-events as a Response to Poverty Reduction: The 2010 FIFA World Cup and its Urban Development Implications

“…Rhetoric by the Gauteng Premier, Mbhazima Shilowa (cited in Gonzalez 2007:2), supports the notion that the South African "vision remains that of halving poverty and unemployment by 2014, and the 2010 World Cup provides an opportunity to fast-track development towards attainment of this vision". Certainly, the notion of a developmental agenda has become a key feature of South Africa's mega-event strategy (Cornelissen 2004a(Cornelissen , 2004b(Cornelissen , 2005Cornelissen and Swart 2006;Swart and Bob 2004). Hiller (1998Hiller ( , 2000 highlights the kind of development agendas associated with bidding for mega-events in the South African context.…”

“…Part of the reason for this ephemeral quality is that post-event analyses seldom occur as organisers disband and governments focus their attention on other activities (Horne and Manzenreiter 2006;Hiller 1998) 1 . Nevertheless, the gap between actual and predicted impacts remains a key concern of academics and the source of a burgeoning literature (Horne andManzenreiter 2004, 2006;Whitson and Horne 2006;Cornelissen 2004a).…”

Winning FIFA World Cup Bids: Country Image Analysis as a Tool to Understand and Secure Bids. A Moroccan Case Study.

“…South Africa and Morocco were both seen to have the necessary infrastructure and technical capacity to host the 2010 World Cup, yet South Africa was chosen over Morocco because it was able to present a more positive country image (Cornelissen, 2004).…”

“…Cornelissen (2004) This paper argues that although well prepared, the 2010 Moroccan bidding committee had little understanding of how Morocco might be perceived as a host country. It suggests that the Moroccan bid might have been more successful had it emphasized the significant country features that might impact positively upon on FIFA's final decision rather than focus on its European ties.…”

“…However in spite of the Moroccan 2010 bid being one of the most promising, FIFA ruled in favor of South Africa. Cornelissen's (2004) analysis of the Moroccan and South African bids shows that both countries used ideological and emotive arguments to position their respective bids.…”